Some of the most interesting products we saw this year and last take an analog product and digitize it: the ReMarkable Paper Pro, which is as close to a perfect copy of pen and paper as I’ve seen, or Amazon’s new Kindle Scribe, which aims to duplicate the simple process of reading a book and scribbling notes in the margins.
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But taking this to the next level is the Nuwa Pen, an actual ink pen equipped with three tiny cameras that capture what you write (on actual paper) and save it in a digital library in the accompanying app.
You can then search your scribbles by content: names, numbers, and keywords, as well as interact with the app’s built-in large language model to ask questions about what you’ve written. This last part interested me the most, as it’s necessary to make this product truly useful.
Are you skeptical? I was, too. There’s a lot at play here, and it’s important to note that the pen is fully functioning, but the software on board is still being improved for 100% accurate results. In a demo with Nuwa Pen founder Marc Tuinier at CES 2025, he told me that the technology involved in handwriting capture is complex, and has been the biggest hurdle in getting the device to perform at the level he’d like.
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Like most devices, the Nuwa pen has a learning curve. You have to be mindful of the cameras and ensure that the notches where they’re housed are positioned on your handwriting. Also, Tuinier explained the idea of a “smart start” — when you first pick up the pen, draw a line to calibrate the device and it will yield better results.
Once you’ve written something, the pen then syncs to the app, saving your note to your device. This process can take a few seconds and up to a few minutes, depending on connectivity and how much you wrote down; it’s where the most complex elements of the technology come into play.
I wrote a few short notes and synced to the app, and you can see that some parts are virtually identical, whereas it had some trouble accurately recording others. This is where the learning curve comes in, as the neater and more consistent your handwriting, the easier time the Nuwa pen will have captured it.
The technology isn’t perfect yet. However, as someone who prefers pen and paper over the iPhone’s Notes app, I love the idea behind this device.
It doesn’t matter where you write — whether in a notebook or on a napkin — the ability to consolidate handwritten notes into a digital space that you can engage with is a valuable tool that opens up many possibilities.
Tuinier also explained some improvements to the app that I think will improve usability. The biggest one is the “infinite canvas” feature, which aims to incorporate a boundary-less workspace for your notes that you can drag, drop, and reorder at will instead of atomized, timestamped notes that consist of single lines of handwriting.
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For those of us who prefer pen and paper, the Nuwa Pen is an exciting device that’s in the same ballpark as writing tablets like the ReMarkable, but with different tradeoffs. For me, this pen would be most useful for work; quick lines of actionable notes — like reminders, scheduling details, and contact information — that can be quickly captured and saved digitally would be incredibly useful.
I’m looking forward to going hands-on in a more dedicated review of the device soon, so stay tuned.